The airlines have been busy lately trying to hike fares on domestic routes, and so far it looks like they’ve been successful. Fare hikes, however, aren’t always as great for the bottom line as you might think.

The latest increase attempt came last week. This is likely to succeed since Southwest has actually hopped on board. When Southwest goes along with it, others generally follow quickly.

But there’s a trick to these airfare increases. They never include sale fares. Any advertised sale fares can’t increase until the advertised period is over, but in general they don’t see big increases anyway when demand is low. Sales are meant to stimulate traffic, and right now, the airlines need more traffic despite all the capacity cuts.

Don’t get too excited. I didn’t actually get to fly on one. But I did get invited to come take a tour of a 787 while it was on the ground here in Long Beach as part of a tour around North America. Of course, I was thrilled to do it.